The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 300

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

JAQUENETTA. G.o.d give you good morrow, Master Person.

HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be pierc'd which is the one?

COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good l.u.s.tre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis pretty; it is well.

JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it.

HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat- and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.

Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not- Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.

Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?

NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.

HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.

NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend; All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.

Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.

Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong, That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'

HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen's lords.

HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu.

JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, G.o.d save your life!

COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.

Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of G.o.d, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith- HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.

HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.

NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life.

HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.

[To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. Exeunt

SCENE III.

The park

Enter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone

BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.

They have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!' for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool. Well proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me- I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side. I will not love; if I do, hang me. I' faith, I will not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her- yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper; G.o.d give him grace to groan!

[Climbs into a tree]

Enter the KING, with a paper

KING. Ay me!

BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!

KING. [Reads]

'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows; Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.

Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep; No drop but as a coach doth carry thee; So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.

Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show.

But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for gla.s.ses, and still make me weep.

O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'

How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper- Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?

[Steps aside]

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper

What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.

BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!

BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!

BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.

LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?

BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know; Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.

LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.

O sweet Maria, empress of my love!

These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his slop.

LONGAVILLE. This same shall go. [He reads the sonnet]

'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore; but I will prove, Thou being a G.o.ddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.

Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is; Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.

If broken, then it is no fault of mine; If by me broke, what fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise?'

BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity, A green goose a G.o.ddess- pure, pure idolatry.

G.o.d amend us, G.o.d amend! We are much out o' th' way.

Enter DUMAIN, with a paper

LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.

[Steps aside]

BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.

Like a demiG.o.d here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.

More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!

Dumain transformed! Four woodc.o.c.ks in a dish!

DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!

BEROWNE. O most profane c.o.xcomb!

DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.

DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.

BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.

BEROWNE. Stoop, I say; Her shoulder is with child.

DUMAIN. As fair as day.

BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!

LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!